If anyone wants to know just how badly President Donald Trump botched his appearance at the 75th Anniversary of the D-Day landings at Normandy, the grandson of a World War II general suggests watching how former President Dwight Eisenhower behaved in 1964 to mark the occasion.
Eisenhower served as the Supreme Allied Commander and he gave the order for the more than 100,000 men to begin the invasion that morning on June 6, 1944.
Meanwhile, the city of Rome had just been captured by Allied forces, including the VI Corps commanded by Major General Lucien Truscott, Jr.
Seventy-five years later, Truscott’s grandson Lucien Truscott IV wrote an op-ed for Salon hammering Trump’s disgraceful behavior.
Truscott came out swinging by reminding us of when Eisenhower returned to Normandy in 1964 to honor the fallen on the 20th Anniversary of the D-Day landings. Thousands of men lost their lives, many before they even got off the boat they arrived in. All of them went in knowing that death awaited them.
During an interview with legendary CBS anchor Walter Cronkite with the graves of the fallen in the background, Eisenhower explained why they fought.
“These men came here — the British, and our other allies, Americans — to storm these beaches for one purpose only,” Eisenhower said. “Not to gain anything for ourselves, not to fulfill any ambitions that America had for conquest, but just to preserve freedom — systems of self-government around the world. Many thousands of men have died for ideals such as these.”
“They were cut off in their prime,” he continued. “They have families who grieve for them, but they never knew the great experiences of going through life like my son can enjoy. I devoutly hope that we will never again have to see such things as these. I think and hope — pray! — that humanity has learned more than we had learned up until that time. But these people gave us a chance, and bought time for us, so that we can do better than we have before.”
Truscott then compared Eisenhower’s solemn words of gratitude and honor during the interview with Kronkite to Trump’s own performance during an interview with Fox News host Laura Ingraham. Ingraham herself is no Cronkite. She’s a disgrace to journalism who carries water for the Trump administration and uses her platform to spread lies and propaganda. In the same vein, Trump is definitely no Eisenhower.
Rather than spend his time reflecting on what D-Day means, the five-time draft-dodger stumbled his way through like a schoolboy who didn’t read an assigned textbook chapter on the subject prior to having to deliver remarks about it in front of the class.
“This is one of the true, in terms of war, in terms of, probably you can also say, in terms of peace, because this led to something very special,” Trump said.
Trump then bragged about himself and how everyone supposedly wants to make a deal with him because America is “the best.”
“Everybody wants to make a deal,” he said. “We’re the best. We’re the strongest. There’s nobody even close.”
He then attacked his political opponents during the overseas trip with the same graves of fallen soldiers in the background.
“I think she is a disgrace,” he said about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) who had declined to criticize Trump during her own appearance at the D-Day ceremony. “She’s incapable of doing deals. She’s a nasty, vindictive, horrible person. Nancy Pelosi is a disaster, okay? She’s a disaster. I call her ‘Nervous Nancy.’ She’s a terrible person, and I’ll tell you, her name is ‘Nervous Nancy’ because she’s a nervous wreck. We have Pelosi, we have Crying Chuck Schumer, who is a disaster, by the way. He’s a total political, you know, jerk.”
Seriously.
These young men did not die so that Trump could embarrass our nation and disrespect them. They fought against a man filled with bombast and hate so that America would not suffer the same fate. Unfortunately, Eisenhower’s worst nightmare has come true. America is not better than we were before. And that starts in the White House.
As the grandson of a soldier who served in the Pacific during World War II, I agree with Truscott that Trump is the worst our country has to offer and our troops, both living and dead, deserve better.
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